Don’t be shy… use email to shout about your content

After spending hours crafting the perfect blog post, whitepaper or infographic, there is nothing more satisfying than clicking the ‘set live’ button in your CMS. However there is nothing more disheartening than checking your analytics every hour to see only a minuscule amount of traffic trickle through.

Writing content is only one step in content marketing, the next step is distribution.

So how can you use email to shout about your content and ensure you are reaching the perfect digital audience?

Don’t be shy…

Great content can do wonders for your website, but only if people know it actually exists. One of the most successful ways to gain exposure of your new content is via an email marketing campaign.

It is highly likely that your marketing department have worked hard to build up a healthy, organic and extensive email list of prospects who are interested and engaged with your brand; so take advantage of this.

Treat these prospects and customers by showcasing your content and giving it it’s own promotional campaign.

Hint at the content in the subject line, link to the content within the email and maybe even offer a link to similar useful content.

Utilise your regular newsletters

If you are generating a large amount of quality content then consider presenting this in an easy to read, digestible newsletter. Newsletters are a showcase for all the great content which you have on offer; infographics, promotions, discounts, videos, whitepapers, blogs and more.

Newsletters are also a great opportunity to gently remind users of any past content which you have created. For example if your monthly newsletter goes out on the 20th of each month, you can remind readers of content which was posted at the tail end of the previous month. This way your content will get as much exposure as possible.

With newsletters be wary not to simply copy and paste all your content into one long, tedious message. Instead include teasers within your newsletter which will entice readers to click through to your website and view the entire piece of content.

List segmentation

List segmentation may seem like basic email practice, however it is surprising how little it is utilised within content marketing campaigns.

Make sure that the right people are getting the right content by using the data available in your email list, and segmenting based on recipients’ preferences.

This way you can ensure that those reading your content will be the most interested and the most engaged.

Triggered emails

Following on from list segmentation, triggered emails are a great way to promote content using real time data. Triggered emails are sent when a user interacts in real time with your website. Triggers can be based around recipients’ online behaviour, such as browser behaviour, transactional data and device usage.

Specific emails including highly targeted content, can then be automated to be sent based around the triggers you set up; for instance if recipient downloads a specific whitepaper, consider sending them a relevant blog or infographic as well.

‘Top content’ feeds

An easy way to continuously promote your content is to include top content feeds within your newsletters and promotional emails. You could include ‘Top 5 blogs of the most’ ‘Trending industry news’ or ‘Most downloaded whitepapers’ for instance. Consider running some split content tests to see which feeds perform best and receive the most clicks.

As you can see, email is a fantastic way to promote your content. Here is a brief summary of the various ways you can utilise email in your content marketing plan: